Northeast Venture Capital Funding and M / A Activity

Daily reports on funding announcements in the Boston / Northeast region for venture capital plus mergers and acquisitions, specific to the high tech industry.

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Helium Raises $17 Million in First Round - Andover, MA

Helium, an Andover-based, online “citizen journalism hub,” announced on Wednesday that it has raised $17 million in its first round of venture capital, which was led by Signature Capital. Helium.com currently has a community of over 150,000 writers, who cover a broad range of subjects. The company recently announced a change to its terms of service, in which “starred” writers on Helium.com will receive upfront payments for all new articles, “in a move to reward the site’s highest quality writers and to promote quality content at Helium.com.” The company said it will use the new funding to “build tight partnerships with leading publishers and provide support for the launch of new digital media products.”http://www.helium.com

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Fairhaven Capital Raises $250 Million for New Fund - Cambridge, MA

Fairhaven Capital, a Cambridge-based venture capital firm, announced on Tuesday that it has raised $250 million for a new investment fund. Fairhaven’s key personnel began managing investments in the consumer electronics, security and enterprise infrastructure markets in 2001. Its past projects include Third Screen Media, which was acquired by AOL Time Warner; Softricity, which was bought by Microsoft; Cloakware, which was acquired by Irdeto/Naspers; and EqualLogic, which was acquired for $1.4 billion by Dell. Fairhaven said that it intends to maintain a focus on the corporate and consumer technology markets, as well as investments in early-stage companies in the fields of high-performance materials and digital media infrastructure.http://www.fairhavencapital.com

Monday, October 27, 2008

UpToDate Acquired by Wolters Kluwer - Waltham, MA

UpToDate, a privately held, Waltham-based provider of evidence-based clinical information for physicians’ use at the point-of-care, has been acquired by Wolters Kluwer, a multimedia company based in the Netherlands. UpToDate’s editorial board of more than 3,800 authors, editors, and peer reviewers write and update more than 7,400 topics addressing questions that arise in clinical practice. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.http://www.uptodate.com

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

CitySquares Gets Investment from Mark Cuban, Jonathan Kraft - Boston

CitySquares.com, a Boston-based provider of local business web search services, announced on Wednesday that it has obtained investments from Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks and chairman of HDNet, and from Jonathan Kraft, president of the Kraft Group and president of the New England Patriots. Terms of the investment were not disclosed. CitySquares said that beginning in November it will begin a national rollout. “By the spring of next year the site will feature over 16 million businesses from coast to coast—expanding on the current database of 1.5 million,” according to the announcement. The company was founded in 2005.http://citysquares.com/corporate/press

Friday, October 17, 2008

V.i. Labs Raises $4 Million in Venture Capital - Waltham, MA

V.i. Labs, a Waltham-based provider of software protection technology, announced that it has received $4 million in additional venture capital to accelerate its product development efforts and expand platform support for its CodeArmor products. Existing investors, Core Capital and Ascent Ventures, participated in the deal. V.i. Labs’ software is designed to prevent the misappropriation and theft of intellectual property resident in software applications. It allows users to detect, gather intelligence, and protect against the threat of piracy, tampering and theft, independent of where the applications are distributed. V.i. was founded in 2002.http://www.vilabs.com/press/PR-101708-funding.aspx

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

AutoVirt Raises $4.5 Million in VC - Nashua, NH

AutoVirt, a Nashua-based provider of data migration software, has announced its official launch and disclosed that it raised $4.5 million in its first round of venture capital, from Sigma Partners and Kepha Partners. Founded last year, AutoVirt offers data migration software for “mid-range” Windows environments. Prior to founding AutoVirt, Klavs Landberg held senior executive management positions at Sun, Data General/CLARiiON, Datapoint, Alliant, and Regnecentralen in Denmark. http://www.autovirt.com/